Practice English Vocabulary Exercises – Vocabulary for Banking and Finance: National economies and international trade

A. Match the terms with the definitions.

B. Look at these sentences about the economy of the United Kingdom. Do you think the answers are TRUE or FALSE? (If you don’t know, guess.)

1   The UK is a market economy.   TRUE / FALSE

2   Most major industries are state-owned.   TRUE / FALSE

3   Many state-owned industries were privatised in the 1980s.   TRUE / FALSE

4   The pound was floated in 2006.   TRUE / FALSE

5   The UK owes several trillion pounds to the IMF (International Monetary Fund).   TRUE / FALSE

6   The UK spends nearly a quarter of its GNP on servicing external debt.   TRUE / FALSE

7   The UK has never experienced hyperinflation.   TRUE / FALSE

8   The UK has never had a trade deficit.   TRUE / FALSE

9   In 2006 the UK economy shrank slightly.   TRUE / FALSE

10   From 1990 to 2005, the UK economy experienced double-digit growth.   TRUE / FALSE

C. Write the words into the spaces in the sentences.

“boom and bust”          budget deficit          budget surplus

crops          deregulation          disposable income

free trade          globalisation          industrial base

infrastructure          market forces          natural resources

private sector          public sector          quota

Retail Price Index (RPI)          social security          subsidies

trade barrier           trading partners

1   European farmers receive large sums of EU money in the form of ………………………

2   If government expenditure is higher than government income, the result is a ………………………

3   If government income is higher than government expenditure, the result is a ………………………

4   In a ……………………… economy periods of growth are followed by periods of recession.

5   People who work for state-owned organisations such as public hospitals and state schools work in the ………………………

6   People who work for privately-owned organisations work in the ………………………

7   Payments by the government to people with little or no other income is called ………………………

8   Buildings, roads, railway lines, telephone networks and power supplies are all part of a country’s ………………………

9   A limit on the amount of particular type of import is a ………………………

10   Import tariffs and quotas are types of ………………………

11   The absence of trade barriers is known as ………………………

12   Britain’s most important ……………………… are France, Germany and the USA.

13   “The world is one big market”. This is one way of describing ………………………

14   The world price of coffee is not fixed. It is largely controlled by ………………………

15   When a government makes something easier and less bureaucratic, this is called ………………………

16   One of the main ways to measure inflation is the ……………………… which is based on the prices of goods and services.

17   The money people have after paying for food, housing and other necessities is called ………………………

18   Manufacturing, mining and oil refining are parts of the UK’s ………………………

19   Oil, coal and water are ………………………

20   Wheat, potatoes and apples are ………………………